NASA has shared images of the landing site of Chandrayaan 2 and said that the lander Vikram had a hard-landing. The images were captured by NASA’S Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) during its flyby of the lunar region. Lander Vikram lost contact with ISRO base minutes before it had to soft-land on the lunar surface on September 7.
The Lander Vikram was scheduled to make a soft-landing near the south pole of the moon on September 7. However, minutes before its scheduled soft-landing, the communication with Vikram Lander was lost.
The space agency in a tweet said, "#VikramLander has been located by the orbiter of #Chandrayaan2, but no communication with it yet. All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with the lander."
The lander Vikram was to land on the moon's surface on September 7. It was 2.1 km above the moon's surface when it lost contact with the ground station at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru.
Chandrayaan-2 mission might have failed to accomplish successfully but it earned the respect of the people. Celebrities including Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Taapsee Pannu, Karan Johar shared encouraging notes on Twitter applauding ISRO’s efforts.
NASA on Saturday commended ISRO's attempt to place 'Vikram' lander of Chandrayaan 2 mission on the moon's south pole and said it was inspired with the Indian space agency's journey.
"Vikram lander's descent was as planned and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently, the communication from the lander to the ground station was lost. The data is being analysed," Sivan had said.
The Vikram Lander successfully separated from Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter on September 2. The Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter continues to orbit the Moon in its existing orbit.
The Vikram Lander successfully separated from Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter on September 2. After revolving around the Earth's orbit for nearly 23 days, the craft began its journey to the moon on August 14.
The Vikram lander was planned to land on the far side of the moon between 1:30 am to 2:30 am on the intervening night of Friday-Saturday. This would have been followed by rover (Pragyan) roll-out between 5:30 am to 6:30 am.
